


Imagine Me

by KaytiKazoo



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Growing Up, Imaginary Friends, Imaginary Stiles, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-02
Updated: 2015-03-02
Packaged: 2018-03-15 23:30:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3466016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KaytiKazoo/pseuds/KaytiKazoo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles is Scott's imaginary friend. Scott's growing up, and Stiles is fading away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Imagine Me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fatetouched](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fatetouched/gifts).



“This way!” I called out to him, ducking under the ivy-covered trellis. He was right behind me, giggling as he chased me about the backyard, our main playground. “Come on! You’re such a slow poke!”

“That’s unfair!” Scott called with a wheezing laugh. He was eight years old, he was my best and only friend, and he was my favorite. We’d become friends three years before; one day on the playground, Scott just appeared to me. I don’t remember where or who I was before Scott, but that didn’t matter. Once Scott came into my life, he was all that mattered.

“Wait up, Stiles!”

He named me Stiles, and I loved that name. But then, I loved anything Scott had for me. We looked a lot alike, Scott and I. We both had brown hair, our tanned cheeks round with childhood, smiles full of missing spots where teeth had been, although my cheeks and neck were dotted with spots where Scott only had a few. Scott let me wear his superhero costume all the time, so whenever we played, the bright red cape streamed out behind me and I felt unstoppable.

We had to be careful when we played, though, because Scott, while he wasn’t sick, sometimes he couldn’t breathe like I could. If we ran for too long or played too hard, Scott would start wheezing and making these scary noises that made tickles creep up my back in a way I didn’t like. He would say later that it felt like there was a huge elephant sitting on his chest or that he felt like a fish out of water.

I don’t know where I went after this happened each time. I sometimes just wasn’t anywhere, especially when Scott had his attacks.

It was what his mom and dad called asthma, I think.

Scott didn’t have a lot of friends because of his asthma, but he had me.

He would always have me.

“Sorry, Scotty,” I apologized, waiting for him to catch up. He leaned forward and rested his hands on bent knees while his chest heaved hard with effort. His hair was shorter than mine, now. His mother had made him get a haircut a week before, so it didn’t flop into his eyes like it used to. Mine still did, though.

“Just give me a minute,” Scott gasped out.

“We could play something else,” I offered. We sometimes did that, sat on the swings while Scott settled and his breath came back to him.

“I think I’m gonna go inside and watch TV for a while. You can stay out here and play, though,” Scott said, heading inside with a hand pressed to his chest.

It was the first time he had ever dismissed me.

My chest felt tight and my head felt fuzzy as I watched him head up the stairs and into his house. I didn’t feel like a fish out of a water. It just felt like everything about me was _wrong_ , and I couldn’t draw breath without it wheezing. Was this an asthma attack?

- _&_ -

Scott and I spent less time together over the next year. For his ninth birthday party, I wasn’t even invited. Scott, instead, played with Isaac and Derek, two boys from his class at school, on his brand new game system that he got from his mom and dad in the living room long after the party had ended. I always played with him on his birthday, trying out his new toys and judging their merit together. Always.

Whenever we did play, Scott told me extensively about Derek’s _awesome_ guitar that Derek let him play, even if he didn’t know how, or how Isaac had this _wicked_ ball python named Monty that they fed mice to and they didn’t even need Isaac’s parents’ guidance. I was never invited to play with Scott and them even though all I wanted was to join them. I wanted to know Isaac and Derek through firsthand experience, not stories about how cool they were.

“I miss you,” I whispered one night in Scott’s dream. We used to play every night in Scott’s dreams, but now I was a footnote that he didn’t have any desire of acknowledging unless he had no better option.

“Don’t be such a baby, Stiles!” Scott jeered meanly.

I was weak, most days. If Scott and I played too hard, I was the one who had to sit and catch my breath. I’d stopped wearing the superhero costume with the bright red cape streaming out behind me. I didn’t feel like a superhero.

I hardly felt like anything at all.

- _&_ -

The last time I saw Scott, we were at the creek, catching slippery crayfish in a net he’d gotten from his dad and plopping them into an old pickle jar with the label half-torn off. We weren’t talking, but we at least were together. It’d been two months since the last time we spent any time together, the cool, moist spring air giving way to a boiling sun that sat fat in the afternoon sky. I didn’t want to move; I felt so weak. I was practically transparent nowadays, normally tanned skin now pasty and pale, and there was no substance left to me at all. I was sat on a flat rock with my pants rolled up to my knees, bare feet in the moving stream, minnows darting past my toes without a care.

“There’s this girl,” Scott started suddenly without looking up from the jar while he carefully deposited another specimen inside.

“I don’t care,” I murmured, tipping my head back to enjoy the warmth of the sunshine.

“Come on, Stiles. Don’t be like that.”

“Don’t be like that,” I mocked angrily. Whenever we were together, we only talked about his school friends. I didn’t care about Isaac or Derek or Boyd or Liam. I wanted him to ask me about me for once. It didn’t matter that I couldn’t tell him anything because I didn’t exist without him. I was utterly dependent on Scott’s attention, and I needed him to acknowledge that I did exist.

“What is your problem today?”

I didn’t want to say anything but the way Scott was looking at me with his big, stupid doe eyes made me want to lash out.

“You’re my problem! How much I don’t matter to you is my problem! I’m nothing to you anymore! We were best friends once, Scott and you treat me like I’m not worthy of your presence.”

Even speaking was exhausting, made my chest ache.

“I’m growing up, Stiles. I don’t have time for kid games anymore.”

“Is that what I am to you? A kid game?”

“Stiles, that’s not what I-”

“No, excuse me. I’m just going to go back to my kid games and _imaginary_ friends.”

A weird thing happens when an imaginary friend realizes he’s imaginary. Everything froze for a moment, from the birds in the trees on each side of the creek’s banks to the flow of the stream against my toes. It froze and I could breathe again, chest not aching, limbs no longer heavy. A funny thing happens when an imaginary friend realizes that he is just that. He becomes free. He is not bound to his creator any longer, no longer dependent on their attentions or affections.

That was the last time I ever saw Scott.

 

- _8 Years Later_ -

I worked my way around the crowded room full of drunken, writhing college students, mumbling out half-hearted _excuse me_ ’s and _oh, I’m sorry’_ s. I eventually reached a safe haven at the kitchen, the counters filled with opened bottles of cheap, clear liquors. A keg was settled in the middle of the room where I was sure there used to be a table with four sturdy, wooden chairs. I grabbed the bottle of beer Cora proffered as I reached her and her sister at the open back door, the cool autumn breeze blowing in and allowing a reprieve from the heat of so many bodies in a small space.

“Stiles! I’m glad you came! I think I found your soulmate,” Cora’s sister, Laura slurred out, normally alert green eyes unfocused while she sloppily gestured with her mostly-empty cup of spiked punch towards the door. I half-turned on my heel and took a long drink from my bottle.

A boy with big, stupid doe eyes and floppy dark brown hair stood by one of Cora’s brothers, a grin lighting up his face familiarly.

“He’s cute, sure, but soulmate?”

“He’s in my World History class and he had the,” she paused to hiccup before continuing, “cutest story about a boy he grew up with.”

“Okay? How does that make him my soulmate, Laur?”

“Just trust me, Stilinski. Go introduce yourself. You won’t regret it, babe.”

Knowing Laura would leave me alone until I had, I made my way across the thankfully empty to the boy leaning into the doorframe casually.

“So apparently,” I started, talking loud enough to be heard over the pounding baseline, “you are my soulmate.”

“What?”

“My name’s Stiles,” I offered instead.

“It’s nice to meet you. I’m Scott.”

**Author's Note:**

> In the interest of full disclosure, this was originally an original story that I'm turning in for my Experiments in Creative Writing class, and then I mentioned something along the lines of "I keep picturing the characters as Stiles and Scott" and also "this parallels TW canon so hard, bro" to the best friend and the best friend persuaded me to make it a Skittles after I finished my assignment.
> 
> So, here. This is something I turned in for a grade. Enjoy.


End file.
